IMG Seminar Series: "Using microfluidics for detecting cancer cells in blood" and "Simulation of the interactions between cancer cells and microfluidic devices"

Jinling Zhang and Kangfu Chen will present on topics related to their research. Food will be provided for $4 to those that sign up on the IMG wiki.

Using microfluidics for detecting cancer cells in blood

Jinling Zhang

Isolation and enumeration of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in peripheral blood of cancer patients are potentially useful for detection, characterization, and monitoring of the disease and its subsequent treatment. We have developed microfluidic devices that are capable of efficiently isolating cancer cells from whole blood. The cell capture efficiency is about 90%. The method provides a convenient and cost-efficient alternative for CTCs isolation in clinic samples.

Simulation of the interactions between cancer cells and microfluidic devices

Kangfu Chen

Our interest is to explore the interaction between cancer cell and aptamer functionalized micropost based microfluidic device. We shows the distribution of captured cancer cells around different shaped microposts experimentally. As a comparison of the experiments, a theoretical model was set up. COMSOL was used to show the laminar flow in the microchannel of the device. Based on the flow data, we describe the motion of cancer cells in the micropost patterned microchannel. The interaction between cancer cells and micropost surface was simulated based on adhesive dynamics. Finally, we compare the simulation results with the experimental results.